It took about five minutes for those hopes to all but evaporate on Tuesday night.

In that time span, the Huskies let a 14-point second-half lead slip right through their hands. Upstart Providence never gave it back -- despite several attempts to do so in the final minute -- and scored a 72-70 victory at the Dunkin' Donuts Center that not only may have put the Huskies on the wrong side of the NCAA tourney bubble but also left several players speechless.

"I'm not sure," Jeremy Lamb said as he tried to explain how the Huskies had collapsed. "It's very frustrating. I don't know."

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Asked why such a talented team has now lost nine of its last 12 games and fallen to 17-12 overall, 7-10 in the Big East, the normally effusive Roscoe Smith shook his head, took a long pause, and simply replied: "I don't know. No comment, I don't know."

But perhaps Shabazz Napier gave the most revealing answer to UConn's failure to put away the Friars (15-15, 4-13).

"No disrespect to them, but this is one of those games that you put a 'W' by it before you even play it," the sophomore point guard said. "But they came out real hard ... and they took this one away from us."

UConn led by two at halftime, scored the first nine points of the later half and had a 51-37 lead after a pair of Smith free throws with 12 minutes, 30 seconds left.

Then, in lightning-fast fashion, it all went up in smoke.

The Friars went on a head-spinning, 19-3 run over the next five minutes, keyed by a trio of 3-pointers from Bryce Cotton to take the lead. Lamb hit a turnaround jumper to tie it, but Cotton hit another trey. Then, Andre Drummond was called an elbow foul, then hit with a technical after apparently tossing the ball at referee Roger Ayers with a little too much force.

"I told (Ayers), 'It's Andre Drummond, he doesn't know how to do that. He's too nice a person,'" associate head coach Geroge Blaney explained. "I can't imagine that would be intentional. He just misread it, I don't know."

Drummond agreed: "I tossed it to him. I guess he wasn't prepared for it, and he thought I tried to throw it at him. I usually just toss the ball to the ref. I guess he wasn't looking and it looked like a cheap shot."

But Drummond wasn't about to use the call as an excuse.

"That's part of the game. I'm not going to complain about the refs and how they officiate the game. They made a call."

Cotton hit both free throws, and Kadeem Batts hit a 14-footer.

UConn got back to within a pair, but consecutive treys by LaDontae Henton gave the Friars a 69-61 lead with a minute left. Somehow, UConn still had a chance to tie it -- twice -- in the final 15 seconds. But Lamb misfired on a pair of long, ill-advised 3-point attempts. Bilal Dixon missed the front end of a one-and-one, and Drummond grabbed the rebound.

Napier was fouled with 3.5 ticks remaining, hit the first foul shot and, after a UConn timeout, purposely missed the second. The ball fell to the floor, PC secured it and had the upset victory.

"I thought we were in complete control of the game," Blaney bemoaned. "They went to specialty plays with cutters, we let them free on 3-pointers three times and they hit all three 3's. Two sequences after, we took quick 3's ourselves and let them back in the game. That got the crowd into the game, and it was a ballgame from there."

Drummond had 12 first-half points -- including four alley-oop dunks, three of them in the first 3½ minutes -- as PC had no answer for the 6-foot-10, athletic freshman.

But after a transition alley-oop dunk to start the second-half scoring, Drummond went scoreless the rest of the way.

"I think we went away from what we were doing in the first half," Drummond said. "They also did a great job on defense. They went on a really big run, came back and took the game."

Napier took responsibility for UConn's inability to get the ball inside in the latter half.

"I just think I didn't run the ball like I usually do," he said. "It's not Andre's fault, I didn't run the ball at all. When I did run the ball, Andre had open lanes, alley-oops. In the second half, I didn't run the ball quick enough."

RIM RATTLINGS: Jim Calhoun was released from New York's Beth Israel Medical Center on Tuesday and is back home after undergoing lower back surgery on Monday. Calhoun will recuperate at home and be monitored by his personal physician. The hope is that he will be back on the sidelines for Saturday's regular-season finale against Pittsburgh, but it's still too early to tell.